Cordelia gripped the steering wheel tighter, "She is a sentient being. Just because we're marketing her as weapon doesn't mean she is one."

"I just don't want to leave is all." Victor said smallly.

The jeep rattled forward along the highway, despite Victor's insistence that it shouldn't. Cordelia brushed an errant wisp of hair out of her face, pinning it behind the arm of her sunglasses, and smiled.

The trunk of the car opened and a little girl looked out, terrified, hoping against hope that she wouldn't see the familiar face of her captors. Her muffled screams for attention dissolved into sobs of terror as she recognized Cordelia's smiling face. Cordelia nodded at her assistant, and Victor leaned in to pick the little girl up out of the car.

"Watch her shackles, dear." Cordelia said. "Unhook the fetters from her legs but ensure that she has at least one on at all times."

Victor nodded and after setting the little girl down on her feet, he produced a key from a small pocket in his shirt and bent down to tend to her ankle cuffs. As Victor bent down, Cordelia looked over him to see Peccavi's Cafe in the distance. It looked like a place that wanted to be quaint, but by the bustle that was going on inside, it failed in some measure. It was a crowded venue that didn't do to be crowded. She was almost loathe to add three more to its population. However, her transaction needed to be accomplished.

Cordelia glanced down at her partner and cargo just as the girl did a backflip with her newly freed legs, sending Victor sprawling in the street. The key shot up into the air. Cordelia lunged, arms outstretched, but the girl got there first, grabbing the key in her mouth. The girl twisted, opening her handcuffs in less than a second. Cordelia screamed as the metal clattered to the floor. The girl disappeared, swirling into a localized vortex.

Victor had since crawled to his feet and stared at the spot where their cargo used to be, rubbing his jaw.

"I may have underestimated the -"

"Shut up and get in the car, Victor.

Commanding Leader

Commanding Leader: superior (rank 2)

Cordelia pinched the bridge of her nose and silently counted to ten as she rounded a street corner. "There's a lot of blink dog venom in her system. She's not going to be travelling very far."

"She's also hungry. Take a left." The jeep banked left, following Victor's instructions.

"So we're going to look for what, restaurants?"

"Or Grocery Stores. Keep going straight."

"Great. And when we get to her, make sure we get those shackles on her as quickly as we can. If she disappears on us, we could be spending hours trying to track her down."

"I've got her signature locked in, she can't get away from us for long."

"Yes, but if she teleports to America, perhaps capturing her would be more trouble than its worth."

Victor nodded. He stared forward through the windshield, eyes glazed over with the task of finding. "We're almost there, take a right." Cordelia nodded and made the turn. "You know, I didn't even want to go to Port of Kings and now we're spending the whole damn day here."

"Oh, shut up, Victor. We'll be back in Khazan by tomorrow."

Victor's head snapped up, his body alive with adrenaline. He pointed out the window at an old, abandoned rotting house that leaned on the corner of a side street. "She's in there!"

Tracking

Detective: standard (rank 1)

Cordelia and Victor approached the building, cautiously. Cordelia kept her hands balled into fists. The door opened with little resistance; it was almost rotting off its hinges. It creaked loudly enough that anyone in the house would be on alert now. Cordelia stepped into the house, half crouched, hoping that the floor wouldn't react nearly as loudly.

With Victor behind her, Cordelia quickly moved to the kitchen, checking her corners behind her as she walked. The fridge was empty, but nothing looked to be disturbed. "She hasn't eaten," Cordelia mused. "I guess we were wrong, we thought she'd go straight for the fridge."

"She's upstairs." Victor responded.

"Why didn't you mention that?" Cordelia hissed back. She took a step out of the room when she caught a quickly moving shadow out of the corner of her eye. A shadow dropped from the ceiling of the room and landed on Victor. Cordelia turned to see the little girl sitting on Victor's shoulders and doing everything she could to get at his eyes.

A little bit of Savate training

Hand-To-Hand Fighting: standard (rank 1)

Cordelia lunged across the room with a precise kick aimed at the little girl's head. Instead, she hit Victor and the two of them tumbled to the floor. The little girl laughed at the inept bounty hunters from atop the fridge.

"I guess she's not as paralyzed as we thought," Victor said.

Cordelia got up off the floor, dusting herself off; Victor got up beside her. They stood back to back in the center of the room, fists balled up, waiting for the little girl to show up somewhere. She popped into the universe sitting on the trashcan. Cordelia lunged, pulling herself out of position. A tiny fist jabbed into her kidneys three times, sending her to her knees.

"Damn, she's fast. Victor, do you have the shackles?" said Cordelia. Victor clanged them together in response.

"She's not gonna just let us slip'em on again."

"No no no. No I won't." The room itself seemed to giggle as the little girl spoke from wherever she went. Cordelia was shocked out of her fighting stance. She stood up straight, dumbfounded.

"She can talk? Did you know that Victor?"

"No, I didn't. That's weird. It's not supposed to do that."

"She" protested Cordelia. In a flash, the girl appeared in front of Cordelia, legs bent, about to jump into the air for a powerful uppercut. Cordelia smirked and swung her leg in a sweep around the room, taking both the girl and her partner to the ground. She pressed her knee up against the little girl's throat and shouted, "Victor! hurry! the cuffs!"

Odds and Ends

Gadgetry: superior (rank 2)

"You know, it took me months to get those shackles." Cordelia was sitting in the passenger seat, driving back to Peccavi's cafe. The girl was in the backseat, struggling to escape. "The Pragmatist doesn't have anything like'em. Anti-teleportation cuffs."

"Did you go to America for them?" Victor asked.

"Yeah, how'd you know?"

"That's where I would have gone."

Victor pulled into a parking lot and turned off the Jeep. Cordelia got out of her side and dragged the little girl out of the backseat, not sparing an ounce of sympathy as her head bounced off the asphalt. Victor, like a gentleman, walked around the car to pick up the cargo. "Cuffs on this time?" he joked.

Cordelia tossed him a pity chuckle and helped him shuffle the young girl into the cafe. Some of the patrons stared as the two adults walked a young girl through the restaurant in chains. Others glanced over, nodded knowingly, and continued their conversations. Cordelia and Victor marched their cargo over to a booth and the three of them sat with the girl pressed against the wall. Presently, a waiter waltzed over to their table. "What can I get for you?"

Cordelia cleared her throat. "I spoke over the phone earlier with a Mister - um"